Only one-way traffic to continue on Kashmir highway

April 3:The 300-km-long Srinagar-Jammu national highway was through for one-way only while the highway, linking the Ladakh region with Kashmir valley remained closed since December last year. The historic Mughal road, connecting Shopian in south Kashmir with Rajouri and Poonch in Jammu region and road from Bandipora to border town of Gurez also remained closed.
Despite intermittent rains the national highway, linking the Kashmir valley with the rest of the country was through for traffic with some restrictions. Only one-way traffic will continue on the highway keeping in view the condition of road stretch between Batote and Banihal where width of the road formation has shrunk due to continuous sliding, sinking of road.
Today traffic will ply from Srinagar to Jammu today, a traffic police official said adding large number of empty trucks and vehicles carrying passengers left different parts of the Kashmir valley for Jammu.
He said no vehicle will be allowed to move from Jammu to Srinagar today. Snow clearance operation was going on war footing on the historic Mughal road, which is seen as alternative to Srinagar-Jammu national highway.
The road is likely to reopen on April if there is no fresh major snowfall. He said that Ladakh region also remained cut off from Kashmir valley since December last year though the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), responsible for the maintainance of this strategically important highway, has put into service sophisticated machine and men to clear the snow.
There was fresh snowfall on the highway which is likely to reopen on April 15, provided there is no fresh snowfall and avalanche. There are more than 20 snow avalanche prone spots between Baltal to Zojila which are posing a threat.
We are working to make these spots safe so that there is no threat to traffic movement, they said. The road from Bandipora to border town of Gurez, surrounded by Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) from three sides, will now be put through on April 25 following heavy snowfall last week.
Actually the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) had almost cleared the snow on the Gurez road in the second week of this month as there was less snowfall this winter. However, late snowfall had delayed reopening of the road. The BRO, who lost two of its labourers recently in north Kashmir after they were buried under a snow avalanche, has been working on war footing to put through the road on April 25.